


the art of stubbornness

by treescape



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, Forgiveness, M/M, Obi-Wan is very stubborn, Qui-Gon overreacts juuuust a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28234977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape
Summary: “What I said was unacceptable,” Qui-Gon said firmly, the set of his jaw adamant and grim. All trace of that near-smile was gone, faded to nothing in the lines of his face. “I had no right. It is your place to decide how you spend your time, and with whom.”Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest, in no mood to hide his exasperation. “It’s also my place to decide whether or not I forgive you.”“Yes,” Qui-Gon said agreeably, but Obi-Wan knew him too well to take it as a sign of capitulation. A moment later, Qui-Gon proved him right. “But you might think differently, come morning. It would be best, I think, if I give you some space.”Or, Qui-Gon exiles himself to the couch for the night. Obi-Wan is far from pleased.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 23
Kudos: 116
Collections: QuiObi Secret Santa 2020





	the art of stubbornness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acciopudding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acciopudding/gifts).



> This is for the lovely [acciopudding](https://acciopudding.tumblr.com/), who is simply amazing and who makes such beautiful art. I was so happy to be able to write for you. Happy Holidays!!
> 
> The prompt was: "Possessive Qui-Gon feels sorry for his earlier overreaction. But Obi-Wan forgives him unreservedly."

The couch would actually look cozy if this whole thing wasn’t so ridiculous. The fineweave quilt they had been gifted on Corellia so long ago looked as warm and inviting as it ever had, the soft gold of the lights overhead catching subtly on a patchwork of blues. In the three years since his Knighting, Obi-Wan had spent many evenings wrapped in the warmth of that quilt and Qui-Gon’s arms.

He had intended to spend this one in much the same way, but it seemed Qui-Gon had _other_ plans.

“You can’t be serious, Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan said, standing just outside the doorway to their sleeping chamber.

Qui-Gon arranged his pillow against one arm of the couch and settled himself carefully on the edge of his makeshift bed. “I’m very serious,” he said gravely, elbows resting on his knees as he surveyed Obi-Wan with eyes of regret. “You act as if I’m sending myself into Wild Space armed with nothing but a blaster.”

“Well, you’ll throw your back out, and that’s just as bad.”

Qui-Gon almost smiled for the first time that evening. “I’ve slept on much worse things than our very comfortable couch, Obi-Wan.”

It _was_ a comfortable couch, but that was well beside the point, and the most frustrating thing was that Qui-Gon knew it. Obi-Wan himself would have a difficult time contorting his body to adhere to its bounds; Qui-Gon didn’t stand a chance. If he insisted on doing this, there was a perfectly good spare bed in the room which had once been Obi-Wan’s.

Unfortunately, Obi-Wan rather suspected that Qui-Gon’s intention was to punish himself, which meant he was hardly about to be reasonable.

“What I said was unacceptable,” Qui-Gon said firmly, the set of his jaw adamant and grim. All trace of that near-smile was gone, faded to nothing in the lines of his face. “I had no right. It is your place to decide how you spend your time, and with whom.”

Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest, in no mood to hide his exasperation. “It’s also my place to decide whether or not I forgive you.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon said agreeably, but Obi-Wan knew him too well to take it as a sign of capitulation. A moment later, Qui-Gon proved him right. “But you might think differently, come morning. It would be best, I think, if I give you some space.”

And with that, Qui-Gon swung his legs onto the couch and curled onto his side, knees bent so that his feet could press against the far side. His hair, already braided for sleep, draped over his shoulder as he tugged the quilt around himself.

He looked as immovable as the Temple itself, and far less likely to cave in of his own accord, which meant there was really only one thing to do.

Obi-Wan would just have to out-stubborn Qui-Gon Jinn.

\---

It was a quick enough matter for Obi-Wan to gather his own pillow and the heavy quilt from their bed. He folded the quilt into a square, corners as neatly aligned as the bulk would allow, and placed the pillow determinedly on top. If he’d thought for a minute that it was Qui-Gon who wanted space for the night, Obi-Wan would have climbed beneath the weight of that quilt and spent a dismal night alone, the trapped heat of his own body a poor substitute for the warmth of Qui-Gon’s frame.

As it was, all Obi-Wan could sense from the dark room beyond the door was guilt, and discomfort, and no small amount of loneliness. He got to spend few enough nights with Qui-Gon as it was, these days, with the galaxy somehow spiralling into disorder.

Obi-Wan wasn’t very well going to waste one of them legitimizing the self-recrimination behind Qui-Gon’s obstinacy when it would only make them both miserable in the end.

Qui-Gon didn’t say anything when Obi-Wan exited their sleeping chamber and made his way over to the couch, but he couldn’t seem to hold himself back when Obi-Wan unceremoniously dropped his armful of bedding and began to arrange his own makeshift bed on the floor. The room was almost too dark to see, but he managed without any major mishaps.

“Obi-Wan, what are you doing?”

“I have no idea,” Obi-Wan said in irritation. “I have no idea why we’re camping out in our sitting room, but since you’ve decided that our own bed isn’t amenable tonight, here we are.”

“There’s no reason for you to be out here at all,” Qui-Gon protested.

Obi-Wan lowered himself to the floor and shoved the pillow up a few inches. “You’re out here,” he replied as he wrapped the quilt around him, squirming into a position that was as comfortable as possible. It was, he thought, a great deal more comfortable than Qui-Gon was likely to be. Flat on his back, he stretched his legs as far as he could, luxuriating in the pleasant pull of muscle before relaxing again. “That seems plenty of reason to me. Good night, Qui-Gon.”

Silence stretched for a long minute, the air stirred only by two sets of breathing in the dark. Obi-Wan stared up at a ceiling he couldn’t make out, and waited.

He hoped it wouldn’t take long.

Eventually, there was a rustle above him, then a thump and a light curse as Qui-Gon accidentally extended one of his legs too far against the armrest. “Surely you’d prefer to sleep in our bed,” Qui-Gon said in his most reasonable tone.

Obi-Wan made a noncommittal sound. “That depends. Are you going to be in it?”

The return of silence was all the answer he really needed, he supposed. He rolled over to face the couch, to face _Qui-Gon_ , even if he couldn’t see anything but a shadowy form above him. The floor was unyielding beneath him, and he wished he were rolling into the solid weight of Qui-Gon’s body instead. He didn’t care where—their bed, the floor, a rocky outcrop on Ikkrukk—so long as Qui-Gon could curl an arm around his waist and draw him in close.

Barely two feet separated them, but he felt as if it might have been lightyears.

“Since we’re both out here anyway, you could always just join me on the floor. At least you’d have more space.” Obi-Wan waited a beat for Qui-Gons’ response and stifled a sigh when none was forthcoming. “Except that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? You’re determined to punish yourself, though really you’re punishing me, too.”

“Obi-Wan—” Qui-Gon’s voice cut off abruptly, and there was a flash of anguish from above that made Obi-Wan’s own breath catch in the sudden stillness. He closed his eyes, lids squeezed almost tight enough to hurt, just to give himself something else to focus on for a moment.

“Yes, Qui-Gon?”

A slight creak and a shifting of the couch above told him that Qui-Gon had moved as if to sit up and then changed his mind, lowering his head to the pillow that usually graced their bed. Another moment of stillness, and then there was the sound of further movement, slow and careful. Obi-Wan tracked every increment in his mind as Qui-Gon rolled to his back, drawing his knees into sharp angles so he could plant his feet firmly on the couch. Finally, there was a long, indrawn breath, and the space between them seemed to stretch almost to breaking before Qui-Gon spoke.

“I fear, sometimes, that I am an inherently selfish man,” Qui-Gon said quietly to the ceiling above, and Obi-Wan frowned. A protest rose instinctively to his life, but he fought it down, because he could hear Qui-Gon gathering the air to speak again and this—

—this felt important, somehow, bigger than a single evening, a fear that could fester and grow if left to sit in the silence and the dark. He wondered if these were words that Qui-Gon would have spoken in the close comfort of their bed, or if they were somehow drawn out of him by the almost surreal atmosphere of their strange little camp out.

“When you first approached me after your Knighting,” Qui-Gon murmured, his voice steady but low, confessional in a way that made Obi-Wan ache to hold him, “I…my deepest concern was that I would tie you always to the past. That you would feel yourself forever bound to your old Master, unable to ever move forward.”

Qui-Gon exhaled slowly, the whisper of sound layered through with regret. “And yet, I could not bring myself to refuse—not your light, or the gift of our time, or the offer of your heart. And now I fear that one day, you will resent me and the choice I have made. That you will think I have kept you from that which you might wish to have become.”

More important, indeed, than a carefully stated wish that Obi-Wan might dine with him a little more often when they were both on Coruscant, and not the type of fear that a simple refutation would ever truly dispel. Obi-Wan shifted until the hard floor was at his back, the warmth of the quilt a comfort against the cool, regulated air of their quarters, and _knew_ his way forward.

“I hate that tea you import from Eriadu,” he said slowly, quietly, opening his eyes not to the darkness of their quarters but to the familiarity of a man he had known for nearly two decades. “Truly, Qui-Gon, it is the vilest thing I have ever tasted.”

Obi-Wan could practically see the confused look on Qui-Gon’s face—the slanting lines of his eyebrows, the slight emerald squint of his eyes. “You have said so before, but I hardly think…”

“And I think Jashara Terrek is the most overrated poet in the Corusca sector. I don’t know where you got your taste in literature.”

He waited a beat, and just when he was about to give up hope of a response, Qui-Gon let out a small, indignant breath that was nonetheless laced through with the fondness of years. “You apparently found yours in a sarlacc pit.”

The smile that tugged at Obi-Wan's mouth was unconscious; he didn't think he could have stopped it for anything. “Trust me to handle myself, Qui-Gon. That’s all I’m asking of you.” He paused long enough to let his teeth worry at his lower lip, and then forged surely ahead. "Do you know what else I hate?"

"Somehow I feel certain you will tell me," Qui-Gon murmured.

"I will. I hate that I can't touch you right now."

For a long moment, they breathed in tandem, the rise and fall of two chests slow and easy in the stillness. When Qui-Gon finally spoke again, he sounded almost embarrassed. “I’ve rather made a mess of things, haven’t I?"

It wasn’t until Obi-Wan’s limbs slackened that he realized how tensely he’d been holding himself. He turned his head to the side, cheek rubbing against smooth syncloth that was warm from his own skin. “It isn’t one that can’t be fixed.”

A hesitation that Obi-Wan could swear felt almost rueful, and then: “Perhaps you’d best come up here. I fear I might step on you if I were to join you right now.”

Obi-Wan scrambled to sit up, the quilt pulling tight around his shoulders and waist as he did so, and untangled himself from his bedding with as much dignity as he could muster. When he lifted himself to the couch next to where Qui-Gon was now sitting, he felt the familiar weight of the fineweave quilt settle over his shoulders—and, more importantly, the warmth of Qui-Gon’s hands tucking it in around the both of them.

“Come to bed, Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan murmured after a moment, pressing them into the crook of Qui-Gon’s neck. He could feel the words as much as hear them, the lightest of reverberations from the tender skin against his lips. “If you’re still intent on self-castigation, I’ll let you make it up to me there.”

Qui-Gon gave a low sound, somewhere halfway between a snort and a chuckle, and it was the best sound Obi-Wan had heard all day. Qui-Gon tugged him in a little closer, bearded cheek resting atop Obi-Wan’s head. “In a moment. This couch certainly has its charms, right now.”


End file.
